High and Wide

Meet the New Blog (Same as the Old Blog?)

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 13:54:35 -0400

Hey America! I am now blogging at the esteemed and venerable blog Gay Condo. I will be reporting things and goings-on as the New York correspondent of this West Coast-based blog, though I bet I will mostly be talking about True Blood. Oh my god, it’s total pornography and I can’t stop watching it! Anyway, I am going to be posting there on the regular, so keep your eyes peeled, my nine loyal readers. I am also going to still blog here probably as regularly as I was before, which was like once every three months, so, you know, still check this and stuff sometimes.

Growing up in an environment dominated by capitalist economics teaches certain psychological lessons...

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:48:11 -0400

Growing up in an environment dominated by capitalist economics teaches certain psychological lessons that are hard to unlearn: Anything of value is only available in limited supplies. Stake your claim now, before you’re left alone with nothing. Unable to imagine that love and pleasure could multiply when shared, we come to measure commitment and affection by how much others sacrifice for us. An outsider might counter that in a healthy relationship, friends or lovers enable each other to be able to do and live and feel more. If you feel, in your gut if not in your head, that having a romantic partner means giving something up - your “freedom,” as they say - then the patterns of exploitation and control have penetrated even into your love life.

—Crimethinc

Whoa!

Fri, 29 May 2009 14:48:00 -0400

Oh hey, honey, is that you? I’m glad you could make it home. I know it’s hard for you to get a day off from the Coldstone Creamery on such short notice. What? Um, oh, yeah, something important, yeah. Well it’s not what you think—I’m not pregnant or anything, ha ha ha. But seriously: I’ve been talking to Joey Lawrence a lot lately, and we’re really worried about you.

Me and Joey Lawrence think you’ve forgotten all your dreams. Remember, at first you said you were just taking the semester off from State, until you could get your head right and make sure that you really, really wanted to major in Communications, but how long ago was that? 4 years ago now? Me and Joey Lawrence have seen the sparkle fade from your eye with every passing day you spend making oversized cups full of “Birthday Cake Remix”, and then having to sing a song with the rest of the people at the Coldstone Creamery, even if someone only gives you 75 cents in the tip jar. You spend a long day of asking people if they want a “like it”, a “love it”, or an “gotta have it” sized ice cream, and they get totally confused because that isn’t a conventional sizing system, and you have to explain it, over and over, and then when you come home, you only have the energy left to drink a Budweiser and play World of Warcraft for five hours. But me and Joey Lawrence remember when it wasn’t this way! When you had dreams! Remember when you wanted to be a celebrity chef? Or the chef to a celebrity? Or write a book about how dogs teach us real lessons about love and get it into Oprah’s book club? I remember that. And so does Joey Lawrence.

We’re not saying it has to be all at once—maybe you could start by cutting back your schedule at work and taking some night classes, maybe find out more about real estate sales certification, I don’t know. But to see you like this all the time, it’s killing us. Me and Joey Lawrence—excuse me, Joey Lawrence and I—just think you’re destined for something so much bigger than this!

Yeah, I met him when I won that contest to visit the set of “Dancing With the Stars” and you didn’t want to come with me, remember? He’s a very sensitive guy, has a lot of feelings.

Well, I mean, ok. That is fine, no, that’s fine. No, I agree, I’m sure they will be relieved to have you back in to pick up the afternoon shift later. That’s fine, that’s fine. Just remember, if you ever do decide you want to explore these ideas, and you want someone to talk to, Joey Lawrence and I are ready to listen. Have a nice day at work, sweetie. I love you.

On the train just now, I saw a dude get off the train with a denim jacket that had HYMEN HOLOCAUST...

Tue, 19 May 2009 01:58:43 -0400

On the train just now, I saw a dude get off the train with a denim jacket that had HYMEN HOLOCAUST painted on the back in enormous black letters. Everything weird in the whole world converges at the 7th Ave Q stop.

“Thieves in the Temple” is the last good song Prince...

Fri, 08 May 2009 19:42:37 -0400

“Thieves in the Temple” is the last good song Prince wrote, y/n?

Whole Lotta Barf

Mon, 04 May 2009 19:52:59 -0400

“You need coolin/baby, Im not foolin/ I’m gonna send you back to schoolin/
Way down inside honey, you need it” = grossest lyric of the day. Hammer of the voms!

There Are Two Kinds of People: People Who Say They Like Kelly Clarkson and Liars

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:29:24 -0400

Hey everybody! So I finally decided to take ten minutes off from taking the quizzes in a copy of TEEN PEOPLE from 1997 to update this blog. I would also like to take a moment to announce my new format: this blog will now only cover news and points of interest related to ghosts, walking around New York City, and Kelly Clarkson, my three major points of interest. It’s good to have focus. It’s the key to productivity!

First off: Kelly! Oh christ, aren’t you glad she’s back, so you can stop thinking about whether you might like Katy Perry. Of course you don’t like Katy Perry! Katy Perry is so gross, she is like a neon pink weave you see blowing softly across the sidewalk on a summer’s afternoon. But I understand, of course—while Kelly was gone, we all took what we could get in terms of prepackaged lady singers with songs so catchy they are basically like terminal diseases. I like the song “Hot N Cold” because I am a human being, but then imagine if Kelly sang it? It would be EVEN better, and it wouldn’t have that awkward part in the beginning where Katy Perry’s voice is really thin and sort of sounds like someone hitting the wrong note on a plastic recorder (like, the kind they give you in elementary school) and you’re just like “Autotune, blurg.” Whatever, I mean, obviously I mostly we were all just listening to Donna Summer, but you know what I mean.

Video

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:20:52 -0400

Video

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 17:13:11 -0500

You know what would be a good name for an all-female over-40 death metal band?...

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:49:00 -0500

You know what would be a good name for an all-female over-40 death metal band? “Crone”

(or possibly “Krone”)

You know who are the only people who should be allowed to dress up like Alex from “Clockwork...

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:53:05 -0500

You know who are the only people who should be allowed to dress up like Alex from “Clockwork Orange” for Halloween? Toddlers. And dogs.

Video

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:51:00 -0500

The Mash...You Know, The Kind With Monsters In It

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:44:32 -0500

If you’ve gone into a LensCrafters or similar mall-y, big box-type eyecare store in the pre-Halloween months, you may have seen a poster for spooky novelty contact lenses. What? No, you know, spooky novelty contact lenses—like, they have skulls across the center, or lightning bolts, or they make your eye look like the part in the “Thriller” video when Michael Jackson turns into a were-bobcat. If you’re anything like me, you’ve seen the poster while looking for a cheap replacement for the glasses you broke while trying to use the NordicTrack at your mom’s house, and thought to yourself, “Who buys these?” Then, later, you read some article in a NEWSWEEK at your mom’s house about a bunch of teenagers giving each other hepatitis by passing around novelty contact lenses at a rave, and you were like, “Oh, of course. Ravers.” And then you were like, “I don’t even care enugh about ravers to form a real opinion about the validity of these novelty contact lenses.” Well, gentle reader, I am about to spin you a tale about a situation where you would develop an opinion on the scourge of novelty contact lenses very, very quickly.

Picture it: a dreary, rainy Sunday night on Chrystie St., on the Lower East Side. It’s nearly midnight, but I have just seen the inspiring feature film “Milk”, and I decide, like I often do after I see a movie I really like, to take the long walk to the D train on Grand St. to have a little time on the street with my thoughts. Since I love New York City so intensely, as if she were a baby birthed from my own womb, I often turn a blind eye to her shortcomings, with idiotic results, and one of them involves walking alone at night. Having come of age in spic n span post-Giuliani New York, I have a pretty dumb tendency to feel safe walking almost anywhere, especially in lower Manhattan, under the assumption that there is probably an Olsen Twin within 30 feet of me at all times. I mean, whose streets, our streets, right? Um, maybe not that way. But anyway, this is how I came to take a spooky walk down Chrystie St.

It was a misty, Edgar Allan Poe-ish night if there ever had been one, and I have never seen less people on a street with so many bars and restaurants on it. I was starting to get a little creeped out, but made my way onward at a snappy pace anyway. Every so often, someone would pass me going to opposite direction, dodging me so our umbrellas wouldn’t tangle. This happened a few times, with a few innocuous people. I often make eye contact with people who don’t seem like a threat when they cross my path late at night—I don’t know, maybe I think that will bond us and maybe they’ll have my back a little if someone mugs me. So, I’m walking alone, making eye contact with ladies and old guys and all that. Until…I crossed paths with a guy who appeared to be…um…a monster. Okay, okay, back up—he was about a foot taller than me, walking in the opposite direction, and he had zombie eyes. Seriously. They looked enormous, round, and had the narrow center like a cat’s eye, like in the “Thriller” video. He looked at me, straight in the eye. I made eye contact before I could stop myself, because I was so confused. How could a human being have, uh, eyes like that? I probably actually made really prolonged eye contact with him, because I was trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Here is an exact record of all of my thoughts in the order they occurred:

1. Oh my god, is that guy a monster?

2. I feel so dumb thinking this, but am I about to die?

3. Is this guy going to eat me?

4. This is really scary.

5. I want to pee myself.

6. In all my women’s self-defense classes, no one ever taught me to fight a MONSTER.

This all happened in a disturbing flash where I really did feel threatened. He kind of lingered in my path for just a second too long and I really did feel as threatened as I’ve ever felt on the streets of Mannahatta (Brooklyn, of course, is another story). But he just kept walking by, as I hauled ass to the subway station, trying to wrap my head around what had just happened. It occurred to me once I was already on the platform—oh my god, those fucking Halloween novelty contact lenses! Now I had an answer to the questions of who buys them (assholes who like to spook girls out by themselves at night!) and whether they look effective in the real life (UGH YES). I can only assume he had some kind of zombie make up on to make his eyes look so circular…or, you know, he was actually a monster. As Miss Liz Smith says, only in New York, kids, only in New York. I mean, at least I hope only in New York.

I Blow Minds for a Living! (homemade skin products edition)

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:34:38 -0500

Hey hombres,

I know it’s been a while since I rapped to ya, but I’ve been pretty busy the past few months, what with watching TV and looking at Marc Jacobs dresses on eBay and not buying them and being poor and the economy and the election and also I devoted a lot of time watching the video for “Hey Ladies” by the Beastie Boys. But hey actual ladies, I have recently (as in, past 20 minutes) just discovered a new beauty regiment that will blow your mind. Have you prepared your mind for the mind explosion? Ok, here goes: SOUR CREAM FACIAL MASK.

Obviously, as a total gross hippie who grows my own kombucha and knits my own internal organs out of recycled jute and whatever, I love all those make-your-own-facial-mask-out-of-food! recipes, even though I typically feel that any ones that don’t involve honey really don’t do much but smell nice. BUT! I just did a sour cream mask and my face feels and looks totally dope. My skin has been all fucked up lately because of the change in weather, and also because I was getting my period and also because I was eating a lot of candy because I am a little depressed and no longer the accomplished binge drinker I once was. So anyway, my skin looked like shit, and I noticed today at work that it was actually all peeling off my chin in little pieces like I had baby leprosy. AHHH! EW! So anyway, I just wiped a generous helping of sour cream all over my face, wasted my precious youth on the internet for 10-15 min, washed it off, and now my skin feels smooth and not at all yucky like it did when I came in from the cold. It also looks way more pretty—I feel that it brought up the glow an played down the gross zit marks on my face from all the zits I had over the past few weeks.

Anyway, I think it is amazing. Something to do with the lactic acid. I’m going to try very hard not to go overboard and do this every day (which I have a hard time doing with anything in my life that works the first time)—mabe once a week. Seriously, this is the most revolutionary homemade skin product/ procedure to come intoy my life since aspirin facials!

Note to vegans: I don’t know, try an avocado or something? Seems like it might work.

Dear Everyone on TV, Stop eating in front of me! Luf, Yom Kippur Gaby

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:58:25 -0400

Dear Everyone on TV,

Stop eating in front of me!

Luf,

Yom Kippur Gaby

Video

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:36:43 -0400

Video

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 08:07:53 -0400

WHY DOESN'T ANYONE EVER GET LAID ON "THE HILLS"?

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 22:57:00 -0400

I recently discovered that we get some “on-demand programming” with our cable package, including on-demand MTV. The obvious outcome of this is that I have watched all available episodes of “The Hills.” I’ll skip the regular “Hills” talk (e.g. vapid, depressing, why) and cut straight to the chase—why is there absoluetly no fucking on the Hills?

Okay, wait, I have one other point to make first, which is that the success of “The Hills” is based like atleast 87% on that awesome Natasha Bedingfield “Feel the Rain on Your Skin” song, which not only creates a mood of excitement, anticipation, and emotional vulnerbility for the upcoming program, but also makes everything that goes on in the credits seem kind of exciting and lively and BEING YOUNG!, when in reality, the most exciting thing that happens in the credits (and the show!) is that they pick up their arms and wave them around a little bit towards the end of the credits. Seriously, turn the sound off and watch this nonsense (of course you can’t get a video of the opening from “The Hills” on youtube, duh Viacom, what are you insane?)

But also: the fucking. There is NO fucking. None at all. Now, excuse me for my frankness, but in the real lives of real girls like “The Hills”, life is basically just Adderall, trips to Fred Segal, and a series of exponentially depressing blowjobs given to boys with nice cars at “the club” (Lo seems like she might be more of a handjobber to me, but whatever). So, okay, I see the point in cutting the depressing, degrading sex from a “reality show”, but what about the exciting, fun, staged sex? There’s marginally unexploitative (for at least one party) sex on “The Real World”! Even Heidi and Spencer, who are ostensibly a “couple”, never kiss, they are never shot in bed, or even padding around the house in their jammies. The simple argument could be made that, duh, none of these people are ever fucking because they’re just paid to hang around each other and none of them even like each other and they probably sold their GENITALS FOR MONEY GOD THEY LOVE MONEY SO MUCH, OH MY GOD. But even under those circumstances, Audrina would totally do JustinBobby (as would many of us), so I have another idea.

I think “The Hills” actually comes from this weird confusing right wing place where sex is considered degrading to women, because women are giant babies (e.g. Sarah Palin). On one hand, it’s a way to keep the show apolitical and generally appealing (how could Lauren Conrad have a stance on abortion rights when she’s probably so afraid of her nanny-boo-boo she can’t even use an OB, right?), but I think beyond that, the lack of sex is meant to show that these girls are powerful and not complete vacant trash—it’s what keeps them from the world of scorn and ridicule heaped on someone like Paris Hilton. They do everything in the world to not deserve anyone’s respect—they barely work, they don’t contribute anything to society, they can’t even support one another emotionally or care genuinely about other human beings— but they don’t fuck, so they’re instantly classier than any girl who has an actual handle on her sexuality, right? Argh, “classy.” Don’t embrace the concept of “classy”, women of America! “Classy” is your gilded cage! “Classy” means you’re to embarassed too masturbate and even though everyone will praise your restrained brand of personal style, you will go to your grave enraged that your husband fucked Marilyn Monroe. For real, people! Classy is the worst lie!

But anyway, yeah, so my point was: they are obviously just as bad as Paris Hilton or anyone else, but they’re not classed in the same category as Paris or LiLo (whom I have fallen back in love with ever since she became an upstanding Dyke-American) because their particular brand of worthlessness has nothing to do with their sexuality. So really, our scorn for all of these shaved-pussy-TMZ starlets has way more to do with their wanton ways than the fact that their held up as stars and emulated by children but their lives have no substance or meaning. I don’t have any overarching point, I just think that’s way fucked.

PS: Sort of unrelated, but oh my god, Heidi’s disco songs are the worst. Do you think they’re the worst on purpose? Is it a joke? Is it meta? If it’s meta, it’s like semi-literate, Brett Easton Ellis type meta. On that note, if they ever make a movie of Glamorama, she should probably be in it.

"My ukulele lessons on Mondays conflicted with my yoga class, so I had to switch yoga to Wednesdays so I haven't been able to go to acupuncture in a while because they only do that on Wednesdays"

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 19:25:30 -0400

I actually said that sentence last night and every word of it is 100% true!

It Came from the Dollar Store by the Broadway G Stop!

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 22:17:38 -0400